Investigations on joining of orthopaedic scaffold with rapid tooling.

Poly lactic acid reinforced with hydroxyapatite and chitosan is one of the commonly used thermoplastic composite materials in three-dimensional printing of orthopaedic scaffolds. This article is an extension of work reported on hydroxyapatite- and chitosan-reinforced, poly lactic acid-based biocompatible feedstock filament for three-dimensional printing of functional prototypes on low cost commercial fused deposition modelling setup. In this work, joining of orthopaedic scaffolds has been performed with rapid tooling by using friction stir welding process. Finally, the mechanical properties (such as tensile strength and hardness) of the orthopaedic scaffolds joints were studied with support of the photomicrographs and thermal images. The results of study suggest that best settings for joining of micro cracks in orthopaedic scaffolds of poly lactic acid-hydroxyapatite-chitosan are rotational speed of 1000 r/min with length of consumable tool as 4 mm and staring time as 40 s.